


I'm not gonna make it

by von_gikkingen



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Gen, episode 8 feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22021705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/von_gikkingen/pseuds/von_gikkingen
Summary: “Leave me.”His voice sounds like a stranger's. She can almost believe that’s exactly who she's dealing with. Because the man she knows to be under that helmet? He's not that cruel. Not cruel enough to say those words. He wouldn't, not knowing... And he knows. He must see it, as close as they are in this fragile moment in the midst of fighting. He must see them – all those unspoken pleas filling her eyes.Unspoken? No. She knew what she said, fighting the rising panic at what a dead weight he was in her arms. Something she didn’t even know she felt, something far too confusing for her to be trying to make sense out of in the middle of this chaos."Stay with me."
Relationships: Cara Dune & Baby Yoda, Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 150





	I'm not gonna make it

How can it hurt this much? How can the prospect of one man’s death fill her with so familiar a pain?

Dragging him back into the safety of the building Cara feels herself taken back to the day when the Empire destroyed all she ever knew. Left nothing but space debris where there once was a world teeming with life and changed hers forever. Whoever she could have been was no longer relevant, not after that day. There could only ever be a soldier. A rebel.

The Empire made her that with a single action.

It was supposed to be the worst thing they could ever do to her. So why is she feeling it again – the anger born of powerlessness, the desperation, the… loss.

_The Empire_.

It was supposed to be gone. It was supposed to be done taking things from her. Yet here she is again, trying to keep her voice steady as she feels herself breaking under emotions so overwhelming they don’t leave space for anything else. Pain that comes in the wake of a few simple words. And as once before she finds herself unable to make them make sense.

Only a few words her mind refuses to accept.

“I’m not gonna make it.”

His voice sounds strained. Did they sound like that? All those voices that kept telling her, over and over, with patience and kindness she would hate them for if only there was a part of her still unbroken enough to feel. She can’t quite recall. And yet, there is a place within her – an enormous empty space where the echoes of those voices never stop repeating it.

_It’s gone, Cara. Alderaan is gone._

A world. Gone. The most horrible thing she ever had to make herself accept. Until… “Leave me.”

His voice sounds like a stranger's. She can almost believe that’s exactly who she's dealing with. Because the man she knows to be under that helmet? He's not that cruel. Not cruel enough to say those words. He wouldn't, not knowing...

And he _knows._ He must see it, as close as they are in this fragile moment in the midst of fighting. He must see them – all those unspoken pleas filling her eyes.

Unspoken? No. She knew what she said, fighting the rising panic at what a dead weight he was in her arms. Something she didn’t even know she felt, something far too confusing for her to be trying to make sense out of in the middle of this chaos.

_Stay with me_.

She said those words. She meant them. It's the part of her that meant them that is now feeling like she's losing her whole world all over again.

Because it doesn’t matter how much she needs him to stay with her. He's already slipping away. This man whose face she never saw, whom she never knew as anything more than a voice and an armour and… _a friend_. And her fingers are stained with his blood and why does that feel like one loss too many? The one thing she can’t bare losing. “I’m gonna need to take this thing off,” she says, her hand reaching for his helmet before the words are even out.

“No,” he stops her as she never doubted he would. “You leave me... You make sure the child is safe...”

She wants to argue. She does. She wants to fight the grip on her wrist and save his life even if it means breaking a rule. It’s someone else’s rule, after all. Not hers.

But she doesn’t. Doesn’t know how to refuse him, not even with her fingers slick with his blood and her heart breaking. It would be too much of a transgression – one she knows herself unable to commit. It would be taking something from him, something that should never be taken. _Like a world. A life that could have been._

And Cara knows all about losing things no one should ever have to lose.

So when he pushes her hand away, she lets him. She listens to the words he’s fighting to get out with what might be his last breaths. Closes her fingers around the metal ornament he hands her and memorizes everything he says.

“We can make it,” she tells him when the words run out, her voice all raw emotion.

She says it because she needs it to be true. But all her desperation, all her pain can't make those words anything more than they are. Hope and nothing more. And hope didn’t save Alderaan. It wasn’t going to save him. This man who is the next best thing to a stranger… So why does it hurt so much, to know he’s probably saying the last things he's ever going to say to her? Why does it felt like the most important thing in the world to shield him with her own body as the room gets flooded with flames…?

“I’m not gonna make it and you know it,” he repeats. “You protect the child.”

_Protect the child_. Could it be that simple? Could it be all it takes - one small, fragile life, hers to protect now?

“I won’t leave you.”

“This is the way.”

_Not my way_ , she wants to scream, let all the misery and loss pour out of her in one last protest. But… _Protect the child._

Cara makes herself get to her feet. When the IG unit hands her the bag containing that small, innocent creature she accepts it without hesitation.

She spares the Mandalorian one last look before disappearing into the tunnels bellow the city.

As the darkness closes around her she finds herself wishing she didn’t. Seeing him like that, knowing how much better he deserved... She breaks and she breaks and while she does she keeps putting one foot in front of the other, following Karga away from the ruin of the still smoldering building.

Because that’s what you do when the Empire takes something you never imagine could be taken from you. You find something and you fill that horrible empty place left in you with it. Even if it’s far too small. Even if it’s just a tiny bundle in your arms and the piece of you that’s been reduced to dust and debris was the size of a world. You take whatever you have left, however small, and you make it be enough.

You take your pain and you make it your strength and you fight, always. You…

_Protect the child_.

**Author's Note:**

> so... Alderaan is a major trigger for me it turns out... which means the last episode left me with A LOT of feels I needed to write out of my system...  
> I think this is the most urgent of them safely exorcised, but... I can't guarantee I won't feel like exploring this further one of these days... you know how it is - all is as the force wills it...
> 
> ...  
> so I tried... that's all I can say for myself...   
> trust me - you do NOT want to know about the amount of false starts I managed to produce over the last couple of days... turns out this will have to be a standalone type thing... apologies to anyone who got their hopes up but... honestly, this spares us all a disappointment of only semi-sufficient chapter 2 - since writing this story worked a little too well as an emotional exorcism (happy to report I no longer catch myself staring into the middle distance brooding over a non-existent planet)...   
> (and just to clarify that doesn't mean I'm done writing works in this fandom... just done with rewatching this scene more often than it's healthy for me...) (nah - this whole thing still has that new fandom smell and keeps me up at night with plenty for me to overthink and twist and project my own interpretations onto... so yeah, I have hope...)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I'm not gonna make it [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22977415) by [blackglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackglass/pseuds/blackglass)




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